Loeffler: Golovkin wants Lee-Saunders winner

By Boxing News - 12/17/2015 - Comments

1-GolovkinLemieux_HoganphotosBy Dan Ambrose: It looks like there’s going to be some competition to face the winner of this Saturday’s fight between WBO 160lb champion Andy Lee and Billy Joe Saunders. WBA “regular” middleweight champion Daniel Jacobs said today that he wants the winner of the Lee-Saunders fight. But now Tom Loeffler, the promoter for IBF/IBO/WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin (34-0, 31 KOs), says they want the winner of the Lee-Saunders fight.

Golovkin has the option of making a defense of his IBF title against his #1 IBF mandatory Tureano Johnson or possibly facing the Lee vs. Saunders fight.

“We would prefer to unify,” Loeffler said to the latimes.com. “The economics that Gennady brings now make it a completely different scenario,” he said.

Getting a unification fight against Lee or Saunders could prove tricky for Loeffler and Golovkin, even though they offer the economics to make it worthwhile to the winner of that fight. Saunders has already said he’s not keen on fighting Golovkin, and Lee now has other options for a unification fight with Daniel Jacobs.

Unless Loeffler can come up with some really big money to lure the Lee-Saunders winning to face Golovkin, it wouldn’t be surprising to see them choose to take the easier path by facing Jacobs or better yet simply electing to make voluntary defenses against the bottom ranked WBO contenders.

It makes sense for Loeffler to try and get the unification fight because it helps put Golovkin in position to win another world title, but it also is arguably the easier fight for him. Tureano Johnson is a really tough opponent and a bad style match-up for Golovkin. I think he would be the toughest opponent by far that Golovkin has ever faced before during his career. It would be a grueling fight for Golovkin, because Johnson is an excellent inside fighter with very good punching power. Lee and Saunders are both flawed fighters.

Loeffler was hoping to get a fight for Golovkin against WBC middleweight title Saul “Canelo” Alvarez for early 2016, but World Boxing Council President Mauricio Sulaiman decided to let Canelo get a voluntary defense in first before defending his title against Golovkin in late 2016. Canelo’s promoter Eric Gomez of Golden Boy Promotions said there was time constraints that made it necessary to put off the fight against Golovkin for late next year.

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It’s unclear what the time constraints were though, because Canelo plans on fighting next on May 7th on Cinco de Mayo. That’s five months away. There would have been more than enough time to broker a deal between the two fighters by May 2016. The thing of it is that the negotiation period will start again after Canelo’s May fight, and we’ll have the same time constraints last time.

Canelo’s next fight after that is in September 2016. That’s even less time than there is now. You would hope that we don’t hear the time constraints excuse from Canelo’s promoters for why they can’t fight Golovkin in September 2016.

When you see promoters making excuses about time constraints for why they can’t put together a potentially dangerous fight, it sends warning signals that they’re simply looking to dodge the fight for as long as possible. The WBC gave Canelo and Golden Boy an extension in order to get the negotiations done. They likely would have continued to give Canelo additional extensions until the negotiations were done.

“We had time constraints to get a deal together,” Gomez said to the latimes.com. “It takes time for a mega-fight. Absolutely, it’s going to happen, but the terms have to be right and satisfied. And it helps us build up the fight.”

I think there’s a good chance that Golovkin won’t be facing Canelo next year at all unless he’s willing to fold on every negotiating point quickly next year. I think if there’s any resistance on Golovkin and Loeffler’s part during the negotiations, it will cause the fight not to happen. Hopefully the WBC doesn’t keep giving Canelo voluntary defenses. Usually champions get two voluntary defenses before mandatory defenses.

Golovkin has already been waiting for his shot at the WBC title since Miguel Cotto was the champion. Canelo getting a second voluntary defense will likely be something we hear next May if the negotiations fail to produce a signed contract between Golovkin and Canelo.



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